The news starkly demonstrates not only the inherent power of location data, but how the chance to wield that power has trickled down from corporations and intelligence agencies to essentially any sort of disgruntled, unscrupulous, or dangerous individual. A growing market of data brokers that collect and sell data from countless apps has made it so that anyone with a bit of cash and effort can figure out which phone in a so-called anonymized dataset belongs to a target, and abuse that information.

Cox, J. (2021, July 21). The inevitable weaponization of app data is here. Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbxp8/grindr-location-data-priest-weaponization-app